The beauty of simplicity. Call it, elegance.

It is these two attributes, elegance and simplicity, that make Carlo Rovelli’s small book – just 83 pages long - “Seven Brief Lessons on Physics” so irresistible. It is a beautiful book.

In a series of six short essays/lessons on physics and one on “ourselves”, Rovelli explains the major concepts of modern physics, from general relativity to quantum mechanics, loop quantum gravity, and thermodynamics.

The book is far from comprehensive. It is more a coherent, and poetic introduction to physics, to the world around us. Also to the world inside us. The last lesson on neuroscience is perhaps the most enthusiastic and the most poetic part of the book. The human brain, the most complex structure in the universe, that beautiful and mysterious landscape filled with so many “unknown unknowns”.